Clinical cover-up: UK spent over $22m silencing NHS whistleblowers

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has found itself in the spotlight once again, after a Conservative MP uncovered that £14.7m ($22.4m) of taxpayer funds were used to silence whistleblowers. That's equivalent to the annual salaries of 750 nurses.

The figures show that around 90 per cent of the 598 NHS
compromise agreements included gagging clauses, MP Steve Barclay
told the Daily Mail. The findings cover a three-year time period up
to 2011.

"These gagging clauses are having a chilling effect on
whistleblowers,” said Barclay, who is a member of the Public
Accounts committee.

"It means that hundreds of potential whistleblowers may have
been prevented from speaking out for fear of legal action, at a
total cost to the taxpayer of almost £15 million ($22.9m),” he
added.

The politician said the findings show that whistleblowers who
want to speak out about the NHS are induced with taxpayers’ money,
and agree to sign away their rights to take their complaints any
further.

"It is glaringly obvious that many NHS employees feel they
are being silenced by non-disclosure clauses in their
contracts," he said.

Barclay has written to committee chairman Margaret Hodge,
requesting that Sir David Nicholson – Chief Executive of the NHS –
be recalled to discuss the use of gagging clauses within the health
service, and to give evidence to the Commons public accounts
committee.

It remains unclear whether Nicholson and other executives were
in the loop regarding the gag orders.

Gathering the figures was a two-year battle for Barclay, who
finally obtained them after tabling a number of Parliamentary
Questions. The Department of Health and Treasury had previously
refused to publish the costs.

Some of the highest ‘special severance payouts’ were at Central
Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which paid
£224,000 ($342,000) in 2011.

Meanwhile, a Department of Health spokesman defended the NHS,
saying that the number of confidentiality clause payouts was
falling sharply and that in 2011/2012, there were 'just' 20 cases –
at a cost of just over £500,000 ($763,000). This figure did not
include costs for the 105 Foundation Trusts which spent a total of
£2.5m ($3.8m) on gagging clauses.

Barclay’s findings come just one week after Health Secretary
Jeremy Hunt warned against silencing disapproval from within the
NHS.

For too long there had been a culture of celebrating success in
the NHS but “not being honest about failure,” Mr. Hunt told
BBC Radio 4. “We must have a culture where people are not afraid
to speak out.”

The information begs the question of how many deaths and
malpractice incidents could have been prevented if the gagging
orders weren’t taking place. The NHS has been awash with
malpractice scandals recently, including the Mid Staffordshire case
in which 1,200 patients needlessly died.

Last week, former chief of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust,
Gary Walker, revealed a £500,000 ‘super gag’ he was given in 2010. The money
was offered in exchange for keeping silent regarding his belief
that his hospital was a threat to patients’ safety. His former
employer now faces a major investigation over its unusually high
death rates.